Stars
by Gomboc123
Summary: Roy's never shot a gun before, but he's determined to get to know his alchemy teacher's pretty daughter, so he figures he's up to the challenge of learning a new skill. Written for Day 3 of Royai Week 2016.


A/N: Again, I would like to thank the amazing zeldamaniac44 for helping with this when I was too exhausted to edit anything properly!

I'd also like to say that in this story, I talk a lot about the shotgun Riza and Roy are using, and how to use it. I know that I have a very clear picture of what's going on in my head, but I understand that not everybody knows shotguns well enough to just know everything. I tried to make this as easy to understand as possible, but if anyone has any questions whatsoever, feel free to ask!

I hope everyone enjoys!

* * *

"Have you ever shot before?" Miss Hawkeye asked, looking skeptically at Roy

"No, but I'm a fast learner. If you show me how to shoot a gun, I can do it," Roy smiled, and Miss Hawkeye stood up. She sighed, took two large yellow bullets from her vest, and loaded one into each side of the shotgun in her hands.

After two minutes of convincing, Roy had finally persuaded his Master's daughter to let him accompany her on a hunting trip into the woods. After having arrived two months ago to begin his alchemy training, Roy Mustang had only talked to the elusive Hawkeye girl a handful of times, not counting the small talk and pleasantries exchanged during dinner.

Every time Roy saw her, Miss Hawkeye was occupied with some chore around the house; either cooking, cleaning, gardening, or even hunting. And when she wasn't out in the open doing some mundane task, the girl was completely out of sight.

Along with Miss Hawkeye's busy schedule on a day-to-day basis, she seemed incredibly shy. All the times they'd had real conversations, Roy had been the one to initiate them, and she had been the one to end them by making some excuse and ducking out. It had worried Roy in the beginning, but now it just made him all the more determined to get to know Miss Hawkeye.

It was a shame she was so shy, really. Because out of the few conversations Roy had had with her, he found that she liked the same kind of novels as him, was incredibly smart, and had far too little free time. Every time the two really talked, Roy's desire to get to know the pretty girl he lived with grew, and it seemed like after every time, she was around even less.

Besides, Miss Hawkeye needed a friend. She was alone basically all the time, and even when she did go into town, there was never any indication that she'd met up with people from there. In fact, most of the townspeople looked at Roy strangely whenever he said he was studying under Berthold Hawkeye, who had successfully isolated himself from everyone else. Roy didn't want Miss Hawkeye to have to live that same isolation, or him, for that matter. But despite his semi-loneliness, it wasn't his primary motivation for trying so hard with Miss Hawkeye. He really was interested in befriending _her_ , not just befriending the closest person to him. It had just been an extremely lucky circumstance that he'd ended up with Master Hawkeye as his teacher, and his daughter as a house-mate.

So when Roy spied Miss Hawkeye leaving the house, shotgun in hand for a hunting trip, he'd jumped at the chance to try and go with her. Even though he'd never done anything remotely close to hunting, he thought it was probably a time when Miss Hawkeye could use some help, and they'd be able to spend some time alone. While walking through the woods, they'd be able to talk to each other, and Roy was sure this time she'd want to keep talking.

"Okay, Roy," She started, and motioned for him to come over, "If I do give you a gun, it's going to be a side-by-side like this one," she paused at his confused face after the fancy gun term, "That just means there are going to be two barrels, like this. Which means you can load one shell into each, and shoot twice without having to reload."

Miss Hawkeye kept talking, and in only a few minutes, Roy had learned more about guns than he thought existed. Terms such as side-by-side, hinge action, the safety switch, barrel, stock, muzzle, shells, and adjustable choke swam around in his mind, further muddled by all of the safety rules Miss Hawkeye tried to explain. All Roy could do was stand, nod, and pretend this didn't feel like studying for a test. The crazy amount of stuff the girl was trying to teach him would be difficult to try and remember in the future. After a long time explaining, Miss Hawkeye reluctantly placed the gun in Roy's hands.

"Try and load it," The task seemed simple enough, but Roy was beginning to blank on how Miss Hawkeye had gotten the gun to hinge open like it had. He thought it had been the small lever right in front of the 'safety' switch, but whenever he pressed it, the thing wouldn't budge.

"Let me help," the girl sighed, and bit her lip before putting her hand on his. Her fingers guided his thumb to the other side of the lever with extremely light touches that made something in Roy's stomach flip. What was that about? He shouldn't be _this_ nervous about just loading a gun for the first time.

This time pressing the lever from the other direction, the action of the gun hinged open, leaving it ready to load shells (apparently shotgun bullets were called shells) into. He managed, finally, to successfully load two into the girl's gun without assistance.

Once he'd achieved that, Miss Hawkeye looked considerably less nervous, "Okay, good job, Mr. Mustang. Try doing it again- alone this time," Roy shrugged, took the yellow shells out, closed the gun, and reloaded. This time, he was able to get it right with Miss Hawkeye's hand only hovering above his slightly.

"So now all I need to do is pull the trigger?" Was Roy going to be able to shoot soon? He was becoming increasingly excited as he realized that this was a real-live gun, and he could actually shoot something with it. And now that it was loaded, the situation had sunk in deeper.

"Yeah. Do you think you can handle it?" Miss Hawkeye asked.

"I told you, I can do this," Roy gestured with his hand, and watched Miss Hawkeye's nervous, contemplative face.

"Fine, but let me show you first," she took back her gun, and the two of them walked near the edge of the woods.

Miss Hawkeye turned toward the trees, put the gun up against her shoulder, pushed the safety off, clicked the barrel selector to the left, and looked at Roy, "It's going to be loud."

"That's fine."

 _BANG_

A tree about twenty feet away splintered, now riddled with numerous small holes. Roy's ears were ringing a little bit, and he could only watch as Miss Hawkeye opened the gun and let the spent cartridge fly out behind her. She took another shell from her vest and handed it to Roy along with the gun. She said something about remembering all the safety rules, but Roy's stomach was too busy doing somersaults for him to really pay attention. He was definitely feeling something, but Roy couldn't tell if it was nervousness or excitement.

He gingerly took hold of the firearm, careful not to touch the trigger until he was 100 percent ready to shoot (gun safety rule number two Miss Hawkeye had told him), and shifted it around in his arms. Roy brought it up to his shoulder, and stood, left foot in front of the right, trying to aim for the splintered tee.

As he got comfortable, Miss Hawkeye came over and adjusted his stance, making the flutters in his stomach worse. Roy told himself they were only from the new experience of shooting a gun for the first time.

She then reached out and touched his arm, gently moving his hold on the gun to something which was more comfortable. She got even closer to adjust his other hand, getting nitpicky about even the direction in which his pointer finger was pointing (It had to be in the direction the gun itself was pointed). As she assessed him further, Roy realized that this was the closest he'd ever physically been to Miss Hawkeye. The flutters in his stomach returned, and he wobbled a little bit, thinking about how all he'd set out to do was spend an afternoon together and talk. Now here she stood, arms practically wrapped around Roy to get his stance right. He tried desperately not to blush thinking about it. Wait, why would he be blushing?

 _She_ couldn't be one causing his heart to flutter… right?

Eventually, she stepped back, allowing Roy to actually try and shoot. And for a brief second, Roy swore her face was a bit more pink than usual. It wasn't like he could mention it to her though, because he was sure his own face was being overtaken by blushing as well. It wasn't every day that a pretty girl was this up close and personal with him, even if she was only there to help with the gun.

Roy closed one eye (he couldn't remember whether Miss Hawkeye had told him to do this or not), and tried to align the small sight on the end of the barrel with the tree like he'd been instructed. The shotgun was getting too heavy now that he'd been holding it up for a couple minutes, and Roy couldn't stop his arms from shaking and swaying. He could feel his palms sweating and slipping on the polished wood grip he held almost too tight, and he figured that he needed to shoot now or else he'd have to put the gun down.

 _BANG_

The noise was even worse than when he'd heard Miss Hawkeye fire the shotgun, but his ringing ears were relegated to a minor annoyance by his stinging cheek and throbbing shoulder. _What the hell?_ Roy had never been punched in the face before, but he reckoned this is what it would feel like. His jaw was throbbing too, and he almost dropped the gun to try and assess the damage it had done to his face. Had it misfired? Miss Hawkeye was much smaller and more fragile looking than he, but the fourteen-year-old seemed fine after shooting. If the gun punched her in the face like it had Roy, she'd probably already have a bruise forming on her pale skin.

Roy looked around for something to lean against, but got distracted by bright flashes of light all around him. _This must be what people mean when they say they're seeing stars_. How was Miss Hawkeye still able to walk around without issue while Roy was struggling to see around him?

Speaking of Miss Hawkeye, she approached Roy from the back, to see how he'd fared. In an attempt to hide his pain and impress her, Roy decided to try and unload the empty shell. He opened the action of the shotgun, and suddenly a hot, yellow empty shell casing flew out and hit him in the eye.

"Shit!" he exclaimed, and dropped the gun. His master's daughter caught it before it landed in the grass, and let out a small laugh before Roy moaned in pain, clutching his shoulder, "I think it misfired. It hit me really hard."

The smile melted off her face, and her eyes grew wide, "Oh my god, I'm so sorry, Mr. Mustang. That wasn't a misfire," What? "This is my fault. I should have taught you how to hold it better," she took the other shell out of the barrel, "You need to keep the gun placed as firmly onto your shoulder and cheek as possible so that way it doesn't slam into you. That was just the basic recoil you felt." _Just basic recoil?_

Roy groaned again, "I don't think I want to shoot that again."

"I can walk you inside. Do you want some tea?" Miss Hawkeye asked, shoving the unused shell into her vest. She looked fully prepared to abandon her trip for his sake, but Roy hadn't come out here to mess with her plans.

"No," even if he wasn't going to be shooting any more today, he was still determined to show that he meant what he had said earlier, "I still want to help you on your hunting trip, even if I don't shoot. I can carry around the stuff we get or something."

"Are you sure?" This girl was an excellent caretaker, and concern brimmed in her mahogany eyes as she looked over Roy's 'injuries'.

"Yeah. Let's go."

There had already been too many setbacks- not just for the trip, but also for being able to talk to Miss Hawkeye again. But no matter; Roy was determined to go with her. Even though the equivalent of being punched in the face and shoulder had happened to him; even though he really should sit down like Miss Hawkeye said; and even though his head and shoulder were hit so hard that he was literally seeing stars; he was determined to become friends with her.

He thought Miss Hawkeye was worth it.


End file.
